It started with a lie

It Started with a Lie

There is no other way to say this. I was fired because I was gay.

Yes, it is illegal. And yes, I tried to find an attorney. But my salary was not high enough, and the pockets of my privately owned school were not deep enough to make it worth their time. That is one of the quieter truths about discrimination. It can be illegal and still go unchallenged.

This story did not begin with my termination. It began earlier, after the 2024 election, when the tone in my workplace started to shift. Up until then, my queerness had not been a problem. Or at least, it had not been an open one.

I have been a Montessori educator since 2002. I know how to navigate. I know how to frame conversations through the language of dignity, respect, and peace education. I know how to hold space for children and adults. I am not careless. I am intentional.

Which is why I knew something was off when it started.

It began with a lie.

The owner told me that prospective parents had been looking through the books on my classroom shelf. The books were in forward facing baskets, accessible to students, exactly as they should be. She said those parents had concerns about a few titles by Alex Gino.

That did not make sense.

I asked questions. If certain books were considered inappropriate, then that standard needed to be applied across classrooms. You do not selectively censor one teacher. I also questioned why prospective parents were allowed to go through my materials in the first place.

Then the story changed.

It was not prospective parents.

It was the owner’s husband.

That mattered. Because not long before that, the owner had shared with me and another colleague that her husband was upset that their son might be gay. I heard it, but I assumed it would stay where it belonged, in their personal life.

It did not.

The literacy specialist, someone I trusted, agreed with the owner. The books were deemed inappropriate for an upper elementary classroom. There was no discussion of literary merit. No discussion of student need. No grounding in Montessori philosophy, which is built on honoring the full humanity of the child.

Just inappropriate.

I was not explicitly forced to remove the books.

But I removed them.

Because I wanted to keep my job.

Around the same time, another teacher was asked to remove her pride flag. She took it down and then put it back up. Nothing happened. Her flag is still in her classroom today.

She is white. She is straight.

That difference matters.

In May, things escalated.

An anonymous letter was sent to me and to selected staff members. Not the colleagues who knew my work best. The letter asked for my resignation. It claimed I was teaching transgender content in a way that made students afraid of me.

It was not true.

It was also not random.

It drew on a familiar and harmful narrative. The idea that a queer teacher is somehow unsafe. That narrative has been used for decades to justify exclusion.

There was no meaningful investigation. No real conversation. The letter simply existed, and that was enough.

Over the summer, the isolation became more structured.

They hired a new coach.

No one told me.

I was the coach.

Then came August 20.

My birthday.

A student in my class had a severe meltdown in the cafeteria. It was loud and overstimulating, not unusual in a school setting. I did what I have always done.

I stayed.

I crouched down to her level and tried to hear her. I asked if she wanted to move to a quieter space. She refused and said I was bullying her.

So I stayed.

Because we do not abandon children in those moments. We regulate alongside them. That is what good teaching looks like.

The interaction was captured on video, but there was no sound. Only an image of me crouched down, trying to connect.

A week later, her father came in to complain.

What is important is this.

I had already called both parents. I reached the mother. I explained what happened. I offered a follow up conversation. I informed my director.

I did everything I was supposed to do.

What I did not know was that my director failed to pass that information on.

At 3:30 that afternoon, I was fired.

The reasons given were parallel conversations with parents, insubordination, and low job performance.

None of it was true.

The owner’s husband told me they were tired of defending me.

Defending me from what.

At the same time, the owner told my colleagues that my termination had nothing to do with the anonymous letter. Her husband told me directly that it did.

Two conflicting stories. One outcome.

They walked me out of the building.

I was told I could return over the weekend to collect my belongings. When I did, I was met by three administrators who stood over me, watched me, questioned me, and accused me of stealing.

Over pencils.

Over markers.

After everything I had given to that classroom.

I left with what was mine and nothing more.

And just like that, I was unemployed.

For two months, I tried to make sense of what had happened. I replayed every conversation, every decision, every moment. What I kept coming back to was this.

This was not about performance.

I eventually found a position at a non Montessori school. I showed up and did my job, because that is what I do.

But I was crushed.

Not because I lost a job.

Because I saw how discrimination works now.

It is not loud. It is not explicit. No one says the word. There is no document that states the truth. Instead, it is layered through language like fit, alignment, and performance. It is carried out through small decisions that, on their own, seem explainable, but together form a pattern.

It is deniable.

And that is what makes it so effective.

I am a Montessori educator. I believe in dignity. I believe in truth. I believe in allowing each child and each adult to exist as they are.

I also believe that silence allows this to continue.

So I am not silent.

I know what happened.

And I am saying it clearly.

I was fired because I was gay.

Teaching poetry to fifth graders is like trying to round up fireflies.

 I honestly can say, I have never tried to round up fireflies. Maybe you have, and I admire you.

 - actually I envy you. Catching fireflies is definitely high up on my bucket list.

     As a small girl, I read so many stories with children collecting fireflies in a jar and imagined what it must be like to do that. Living in Colorado, the only bugs I ever caught were mosquitoes sucking blood from me. I may have trapped a couple unsuspecting caterpillars and crickets and grasshoppers.   Yet, our dry climate dictates our insect experiences.  There aren't many.

    You may read the title and wonder what I mean by teaching poetry is like trying to round up fireflies.  Many of my students have only ever experienced rhyming couplets or haikus. They love Haikus, by the way.  I think it is because there is a formula and while it doesn't have to be restricted to a nature theme, nature really speaks to children. 

They can write Haikus 

until the sun goes to sleep 

or class is over

    I am a published poet. Not a famous one because I am still living and breathing(poet joke). I do have a true love of all things poetry. Maybe it is not needing to debate punctuation rules when writing poetry that makes me love it more. I am not a rule breaker so the freedom to break rules in poetry makes me jump for joy. Plus, poets don't debate the Oxford comma, which I still use. Teaching poetry should be easy, for me right?

    Well, teaching poetry to my students feels like sending them on a hunt for fireflies where none exist.  What's a stanza? Why isn't it called a paragraph? Do I get a bad grade if I use punctuation? What do mean I don't need periods? I don't get it, why do we need to write poetry?

    And then it happens, the one student in the class who shows me a piece of writing that makes me tear up because there it is. So raw and real. The emotion dripping off the page. The writing of a 10 year old that screams Potential Poet Laureate. Like catching something in a jar that you have never seen.  Like the fireflies I can only imagine being caught on a summer's night I have yet to experience.

    I snap a picture of their writing. They smile. The next day they come back they ask me why I took a picture of the poem. And then it hit's me.  This must be what catching fireflies in a jar feels like. I tell her, "I want to savor the moment your words touched my heart." They stand up taller and walk back to their chair beaming like a whole jar of fireflies in a jar. I think my Bucket List got a little shorter.

A Letter to Myself

Dear Tanya,

Well, look at you. You (almost) finished the project-the third attempt. That alone deserves a moment of celebration and maybe a cup of coffee or two.

This year you asked a real question about your classroom and actually followed it all the way through (for once). You gathered data. You watched your students carefully. You tried something new. That is the real work of teaching and learning. It is also the work of leadership even if it does not always feel that way in the moment.

One of the biggest things you were reminded of this year is something you have believed for a long time. Students need time to actually understand ideas. When your students could see the math with Montessori materials the light bulbs started going on. Place value stopped being a mysterious set of numbers on paper and started making sense. Even gifted students needed that. Apparently being smart does not mean you magically understand long division.

This year also pushed you personally. You started in a new school. You introduced Montessori materials to students who had never seen them before. At times you probably wondered what you had gotten yourself into. That is normal. Trying something new in a classroom always feels a little risky. But you trusted your instincts and kept going.

As you move forward remember that leadership does not mean having all the answers. It often means noticing problems, asking good questions, and sharing what you learn with others. You already know how to do that. You have been doing it all year. Well, your whole life, really.

You will probably still have moments where you wonder if you are doing enough or if anyone is even paying attention to your ideas. When that happens remember two things. First trust what you saw in your classroom. Your students showed you that meaningful learning was happening. Second, remember that good teaching is often a quiet kind of leadership. It happens one lesson one student and one small breakthrough at a time.

Also remember to laugh once in a while. Teaching math to fifth graders is serious business but it is also full of strange moments. If a student suddenly announces that math finally makes sense that is a pretty good day.

You did good work this year. I mean you started three projects and almost finished one. Be proud of that. Keep asking questions, keep trusting your experience, and keep building classrooms where understanding comes first.

Now go celebrate (almost) finishing this project. You earned it.

Sincerely

Tanya

When the verb collides with the noun

When the verb collides with the noun

 Reaching into the grammar box

of carefully designed

and curated shapes

 I look for the perfect one to signify

 all the emotions

 all the feels

 all the things

 that keep me sane

 from the insanity

 of all things

 transitive and intransitive

 You know they really should

 make a symbol

 that I can grab

 And

 fling across the room

 Or

 stuff in my pocket

 like a three-year-old

 coveting the top of the

 Pink

 Tower

You know

 the one the embarrassed

 parents returns to school

 in a snack sized Ziploc

 apologizing while wondering

 if their child

 has a proclivity to thievery

 I would love to have

 a wooden symbol of Shame

 that I gleefully grind up

 in the never-working pencil sharpener

 only to have it’s shavings

Spread

Throughout

The classroom

Like star-stuff exploding from the

Black Balloon that was

Popped 9 months ago

Remnants of which cling 

To the picked-through

Carpet fringe

Refusing to let go

Hanging on for dear life

Grammar symbols 

Are

Concrete treasures for the

Inexplicably never-explanable

Moments of

abstract feelings that

Pop

Up

When all things

Organized spillout-

Like when someone haplessly

Drops the racks and tubes  causing

The kids to stop and stare-

But scurry to help

Put

It 

All back

While letting the stunned student know

Others have done it before

Together like worker bees repairing 

The hive

They  swarm

And in a split second go

On to their work

Without missing a beat

I think 

I’ll throw the

Grammar box symbols

Up into the air

And see what falls on

To my carefully unrolled 

Dirty white woven rug

Made in India that

Smells lightly of Tide

Then I will

Practice walking around

It without treading

On all of

The work

The Work

Life created

Without me

A Year of Change, Questions, and Rediscovering Why I Teach

This year did not go the way I expected.

If you had asked me a year ago where I thought I would be, I would have said I would still be teaching in a Montessori classroom. Instead, I found myself starting over in a new environment, teaching fifth grade at a constructivist school for gifted learners. It was not a transition I planned, and at times it was honestly very difficult.

But teaching has a funny way of pulling you forward.

When I arrived in my new classroom, I brought with me years of Montessori experience and a deep belief that children learn best when they can explore ideas in meaningful and concrete ways. I also brought a lot of questions.

One of the biggest questions I began asking early in the year was about math.

My students were bright. Curious. Creative thinkers. But when I looked closely at their math work, I noticed something interesting. Many students could follow procedures, but when I asked them why the math worked, the answers were not always clear.

That made me wonder something simple.

What would happen if students who were used to abstract math could actually see the structure of mathematics?

So I tried something that felt both familiar and new. I introduced Montessori math materials into a gifted fifth grade classroom.

Golden beads. The stamp game. Racks and tubes.

For many of my students this was the first time they had ever seen math this way.

At first there was curiosity. Sometimes confusion. But slowly something began to change.

Students started slowing down their thinking. They began explaining their reasoning to one another. Place value was no longer just a number written on paper. It was something they could build and manipulate.

One moment in particular stuck with me.

A student paused during a lesson and said quietly, “Oh… I see it now. The math actually makes sense.”

That moment captured everything I hoped this project might become.

Over the course of several months I studied what was happening in the classroom. I looked at student work, listened carefully to their thinking, and reviewed assessment data. While the numbers showed growth, the more important change was in the way students talked about math. They were not just solving problems. They were understanding them.

This year was not easy. Starting in a new environment, navigating unexpected challenges, and continuing my own professional work through the AMS Emerging Leaders Fellowship required persistence and a lot of reflection.

But it also reminded me of something important.

Good teaching begins with curiosity.

Sometimes leadership in education is not about having the perfect plan. Sometimes it is simply about asking good questions, paying attention to students, and being willing to try something different.

I am grateful for the students who were willing to explore mathematics in a new way with me. Their curiosity made the entire experience worthwhile.

And if there is one thing I am taking with me from this year, it is this:

When students can see mathematics, they begin to understand mathematics.

And when understanding grows, confidence follows.

This year challenged me in ways I did not expect. But it also reminded me why I love this work.

Sometimes the most meaningful learning happens when things do not go exactly as planned.